Speak. Write. Educate. Make a statement in your life. Make your life a statement.
Disclaimer: Views and articles posted on this website are those of their authors and do not necessarily represent the views of CAIR or blog owner.

About Me

Hussam has been a lifelong human rights activist who is passionate about promoting democratic societies, in the US and worldwide, in which all people, including immigrants, workers, minorities, and the poor enjoy freedom, justice, economic justice, respect, and equality. Mr. Ayloush frequently lectures on Islam, media relations, civil rights, hate crimes and international affairs. He has consistently appeared in local, national, and international media.
Full biography at:
http://hussamayloush.blogspot.com/2006/08/biography-of-hussam-ayloush.html

“In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist; And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist; And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew; And then…they came for me … And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”Pastor Martin Niemöller

Members of Congress plan to host a National Day of Prayer event in May featuring evangelist Franklin Graham. The invitation to Graham, who has described Islam as “a very evil and wicked religion,” came in the wake of an invitation extended to Graham for a similar event at the Pentagon the same week. Before being subsequently withdrawn, the invitation sparked widespread criticism from both within and outside the Pentagon. Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said inviting Graham to speak “would be like bringing someone in on national prayer day madly denigrating Christianity.”

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Like every year, for the last 5 years, CAIR joined the Manzanar Committee and many other groups on this year's annual Manzanar Pilgrimage.

Over 100 Southern California Muslims joined the CAIR bus and participated in this inspirational event. I will write more about it.

My highlight this year was meeting the grandson of Toyo Miyatake.Miyatake was the award-winning Japanese American photographer who was interned at Manzanar. Miyatake's struggle and inspirational story were the subject of a recent documentary film entitled: Toyo's Camera. I am very honored to be in that documentary.

Below, is my picture with Gary Miyatake, the grandson of the legendary Toyo.

The Arizona chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR-AZ) today expressed disappointment at the signing into law of Senate Bill 1070. CAIR-AZ and other civil liberties groups say the law legitimizes suspicion based on appearance and will result in racial profiling and discrimination.

“It’s natural for the Muslim community to find this new law appalling” says CAIR-AZ Chairman Anas Hlayhel. “The Quran instructs Muslims to stand up against injustice and racism, which this bill seems to advocate. No matter what good this bill claims to bring, we see that its harm will outweigh its good. We see it as a desperate attempt to legitimize racial profiling in order to hide the failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform. It is a reminder of recent attempts to legitimize racial profiling at airports."

Hlayhel said the new law is a major setback to civil rights accomplishments in America.

Chris Hedges spoke at the Revolution Books Town Hall Meeting at Ethical Culture Society on January 13, 2009 condemning Israel and USA complicity in Israel’s attack on the innocent men, women and children of GAZA and the West Bank.

Chris Hedges graduated from seminary at Harvard Divinity School and was a foreign correspondent for nearly two decades for the New York Times and other publications. He shared the Pulitzer Prize in 2002. In his book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (Public Affairs, 2002), Hedges gives an account of the “intoxication” of war, which he covered in regions around the world, including El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo. His most recent book is Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (Nation Books, 2009).

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Because no occupation, no matter how brutal or racist it might be, can ever defeat the will and desire of children to live free on their own land.

No form of racism, including Zionism, can justify or deny a child -- Muslim, Jewish, Christian or other -- his or her God-given right to live with dignity and security.

In the name of Zionism, Israel continues to violate the basic human rights of Palestinian children, subjecting them to torture, brutality, detention, starvation (in Gaza), humiliation, psychological and physical terror, denial of medical care, and occupation.

Israeli and Palestinian children deserve to live in peace.

Israel must stop waging wars, occupying other people's land, and committing war crimes while using our hard-earned free American tax money.

For once, Israel should take responsibility for its own immoral acts and stop damaging our credibility, making more enemies for us, and endangering our national security. America deserves better allies than this.

In peace, with justice.

(I intentionally chose not to post any images of killed or wounded children. There are many, but think we all are aware of such tragic images. P.S. My favorite photo is the last one.)

ISLAMIC financial bodies, which adhere to religious proscriptions against interest, have a market potential of at least US$5 trillion ($5.43 trillion), Moody's Investors Service said.

Its important to understand that Islamic Finance doesn't necessarily mean a new safe form of financing or investing.

Rather its an alternative source of funding respecting the religious beliefs and values of Islam.Analysis

Islamic Shari’ah and its Objectives

Shari’ah principles underlying equity investments.Prohibition of riba (interest). Investors may not deal in equity or monetary transactions involving riba. This includes interest leverage instruments and gearing. Nor may they invest in entities whose primary income is derived from interest (banks). Also prohibited are stocks guaranteeing fixed returns (preference shares).

The goals and objectives of shari’ah are important and are based around benefits to the individual and community. The primary rule is that everything in financial transactions is permissible unless there is a text of prohibition and so shari’ah laws function as a protection. This protection provides a real benefit, in terms of facilitating a higher uality form of humanity...

The US-based Center for Constitutional Rights is petitioning various United Nations offices, of Palestinian families whose ancestors are buried in the Mamila Cemetery.

The cemetery better known as Mamilla, has been a Muslim burial ground since the 7th century, when companions of the Prophet Muhammad were reputedly buried there.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles based non-profit association, began to build a Museum of Tolerance on the grounds of the Maaman Allah cemetery in Jerusalem.

It is also houses the remains of soldiers and officials of the Muslim ruler Saladin from the 12th century, as well as generations of important Jerusalem families and notables. The cemetery grounds also contain numerous monuments, structures, and gravestones attesting to its hallowed history, including the ancient Mamilla Pool, which dates back to the Herodian period, or the 1st century B.C.

VAN NUYS - Danielle Feuer and July Aye both study hard, share Facebook friends and worship the same God.

But one is Jewish, the other Muslim, working side-by-side among a dozen interfaith teens on Sunday to sort food at a Van Nuys food bank.

"The whole point of our group is to not be confrontational, but to learn about each other and to discuss issues in a friendly way," said Feuer, 16, of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills.

"We're not just learning about religions," added Aye, 15, of King Fahad Mosque in Culver City. "We go to each others' houses. We go to each others' places of worship. We go on Facebook."

After six months of praying, meeting, going to the movies and serving to help the poor together, the Teen Interfaith Project of both congregations has formed bonds between faiths at historical odds overseas.

The project - the first known group of its kind in Los Angeles - follows a national "twinning" movement to bring mosques and synagogues together, organizers say.

Both faiths share similarities, including values of required charity. And teens from both have worked to mutually respect their differences...

The state-run Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) launched a new Arabic-language channel on Sunday, a move that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has hailed as a landmark in uniting the Turkish and Arab peoples...

“We have a mutual history and culture, and more importantly, we are members of a mutual civilization. We share a past on these lands. You should also know that our future is one, too,” Erdoğan said.

The new channel will broadcast in Arabic around the clock and is expected to reach 350 million people throughout the Arab world. Most of the programs will be presented by native Arabic speakers. According to the channel’s editorial policy, they will address the ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity of the region...

“Nobody has had the power to separate bothers,” he added. “Even though we have turned our face to the West, we never turned our backs to the East.”

The prime minister also talked about the disasters in Haiti, Chile and Palestine.

“As Gaza burns and dark clouds form over Jerusalem, we can’t stay mute,” he said...

Read full story at:http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-206532-100-state-run-trt-launches-arabic-language-channel.html

Monday, April 05, 2010

WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded. [Even those who tried to help the wounded were killed with no reason]

End Israel’s U.S. Allowance So Both Can GainMarch 30, 2010BusinessWeekCommentary by Celestine Bohlen

March 31 (Bloomberg) -- The crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations isn’t going away. If anything, it keeps getting worse, precisely because it has exposed and crystallized a gap between the goals, expectations and even the national interests of these old allies...

The advantages for the U.S. are obvious: It would save money at a time when the federal debt is zooming out of sight. The sums aren’t great -- a drop compared with the $1.4 trillion budget deficit in fiscal 2009 -- but it would take some of the sting out of Israel’s stubborn opposition to U.S. policies.

Severing the financial links could also correct the perception that the U.S., as Israel’s patron, can’t be an honest broker in the Middle East.

That assumption, widely held in the Arab world, was put on the record by General David Petraeus, head of the U.S. military’s Central Command, when he told the U.S. Congress that the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict “foments anti- American sentiment due to a perception of U.S. favoritism toward Israel.”

Similar words have been used by James L. Jones, the U.S. national security adviser, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The message is clear: Failure to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians isn’t just about Israel anymore. It’s about U.S. national-security interests...